The NASA’s Ingenuity has a special honor. The location where it completed its final flight has been named “Valinor Hills” after the fictional location from J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy novels according to NASA officials. This move was inspired by “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy. J.R.R. Tolkien is renowned for his famous fantasy works, including “The Lord of The Rings,” “The Hobbit,” and “The Silmarillion.” The author’s stories have been adapted into various forms of media, such as movies and television series, including the Amazon Prime series “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” starting in 2022.
The location Valinor Hills is related to the Undying Lands in Tolkien’s mythology, which were a significant part of the story. These islands were home to the elves and the Valar, a group of beings involved in creating the world. The name “Valinor Hills” is fitting for Ingenuity, which completed 72 flights after landing on Mars in 2021. The helicopter’s last flight was halted due to harsh Martian terrain on Jan. 18.
The helicopter has concluded its flights after sustaining damage to its blades. It is still functional and can send engineering data to Perseverance, the Mars rover, as long as they are within range. However, Perseverance will continue its mission to collect samples for a possible Mars sample return mission (MSR) in the 2030s. This will eventually lead to the rover moving away from Ingenuity and leaving the flying sentinel inactive, marking the end of its mission.
NASA plans to continue deploying flying sentinels on future missions, including two fetch helicopters on the MSR mission plan, if budgetary issues are resolved quickly. The program at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is currently experiencing financial constraints due to uncertainty about NASA’s budget and MSR. NASA is currently operating under a continuing resolution, freezing spending at 2023 budgetary limits until new fiscal year spending is negotiated. “The impacts will occur across both technical and support areas of the Lab,” JPL officials said in a recent statement. “These are painful but necessary adjustments that will enable us to adhere to our budget allocation while continuing our important work for NASA and our nation.”
